Portol

Founder and CEO of Mad, a creative agency, Marc Aptakin is a human pinball of nonstop energy and tireless initiative. A Miami native with a knack for visual aesthetics and a passion for records and technology, Marc eventually found his way to advertising, gaining his footing in the print industry during the 90s at a chaotic time that inspired him to start his first company at 27. In February of 2001, armed with only a laptop and a whole lot of grit, Marc launched Mad under the original name of Mad Studios. In the twenty-plus years since then, he has built it into the full-service creative solutions company that it is today.

Mad’s brand new headquarters in Dania Beach is a playground for creatives, featuring spaces for virtual production, film and photo studios, rooms for workshops, a proprietary art gallery, and the Mad Arts Immersive Museum. What makes Mad unique is its ability to concept, create and fulfill work in-house through its various branches: Mad Agency, Mad Studio, Mad Dev, MadLabs, and Mad Arts.

Mad’s success has given Marc the opportunity to employ top creative talent from all over the world. At MadLabs, the team has access to an exploratory space for performing cutting-edge research into high-end tech and future trends. NFTs were an unexpected but natural intersection on the tech side, which originally began as a hobby for Mad creatives, but quickly developed into an important and profitable division of the company. Its goal is to help NFT artists create high-tech results they could not ordinarily achieve on their own. The MadLabs team collaborates with successful NFT artists to make truly complicated work such as live painting in the metaverse become a reality.

Through a nonprofit division within Mad Arts, Marc has crafted a pay-it-forward process dedicated to the discovery and promotion of local artists by helping bring their unique visions to life. Previous exhibitions have featured award-winning creators David Carson and Edison Peñafiel. Any profit from these events goes to funding the next generation of collaborators working with Mad Arts.